Notice

This site uses cookies...Cookies are small text files that help us make your web experience better. By using any part of the site you consent to the use of cookies. More information about our cookies policy can be found on the Terms of Use.

​A word for Nineveh

Feb. 18, 2016

Francis’ final hours in Mexico, just a short distance from its border with
the United States of America, summarized the meaning and content of his 12th
international journey as Pope. “I am a man: I only last a brief while, and the
night is vast. But I look up: the stars are writing. Without grasping I
understand: I am also the writing and in this very instant someone is spelling
me out”. These beautiful verses by the Mexican poet Octavio Paz were used by
Pope Bergoglio to bid farewell to the great country where he spent the five
bustling days of a visit that concluded at Ciudad Juárez, one of the most
violent cities in the world. One of his eloquent gestures was a moving homage
to the victims of forced migration, the plague of our time.

Yet even in the dark of night, the Pope perceived many lights. They are the
women and men he met in these days, “tomorrow’s prophets”, for whom he implored
the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that they may be missionaries,
witnesses of mercy and reconciliation. These words were especially resonant in
a prison where Francis celebrated the Jubilee of Mercy with inmates, assuring
them that there is always the “possibility of writing a new story”. Because
those who have “experienced hell” can, by breaking the cycle of violence and of
exclusion, become prophets in

The Pope then spoke to labourers and entrepreneurs about the possibility and
urgent need of a different future, framing the issue as only he can: “we do not
have the luxury of missing any chance to encounter, any chance to discuss,
confront or explore”, because the only way to prepare for tomorrow is to build
the “needed framework” in order to reestablish social bonds. In this way
labourers and entrepreneurs are united by the same responsibility to create
jobs, the only way to defeat the poverty that is exploited by drug trafficking
and violence. Again, the “Social Doctrine of the Church is against no one, but
in favour of all”, because “we are all in the same boat”, Francis explained
simply. a society ruled by a culture that discards
people.

The final act of the Pontiff’s Mexican journey was the great Mass on the
U.S. border. In a place that symbolizes the “human tragedy” that arises from
the worldwide phenomenon of forced migration, which claims thousands of victims
and which should be measured by recalling the names, the stories, the families,
the “brothers and sisters of those expelled by poverty and violence, by drug
trafficking and criminal organizations”, the Pope spelled out once again.

The glory of God is the life of man, St Irenaeus stated in a verse dear to
Paul vi. Today that phrase was
repeated by Pope Montini’s Successor as he commented on the story of Jonah. The
Prophet was sent by God to Nineveh, the great city that “was self-destructing
as a result of oppression and dishonour, violence and injustice”. Thus Jonah
was sent “to wake up a people intoxicated with themselves”, with the word of
mercy, in order to affirm that “there is always the possibility of change”.
Nineveh converted and thus Francis made the same request here, imploring tears
and conversion.